You Used to Be a Christian?

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet with a very intelligent, very well educated, very accomplished, very impressive man. We enjoyed a delightful hour together, talking about business, but also sharing life stories and talking about religion and philosophy. I relish discussions like this! During our conversation, he shared with me that he is a former Christian. (This is an impossibility, in the truest meaning of that term, but I understand what he meant.) He has rejected orthodox Christianity and become a Universalist and Unitarian. Why? He grew weary of being accused of being judgmental and condemning of other religions and people holding to other religions. He came to view himself as judgmental and condemning of others, and he didn’t like it. He couldn’t accept the idea of a loving God sending anyone to hell. He couldn’t rationalize that a “good person,” like Gandhi, for example, would not be saved, simply because he did not “accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.”

Of course, there’s nothing new to see here (so far). My new friend, whose father was a Christian minister, walked away from the Christian religion because he viewed it as too exclusive, too narrow minded, too judgmental — and too arrogant — for supposing that only those who “accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior” will be saved, and everyone else will be doomed to an eternity in hell. His new position is that all religions teach their adherents to do good things — all religions have good moral or ethical teaching. How could he claim that Christianity’s moral teachings were any better than those of any other religion? He came to the conclusion that all the different religions lead to the same “God.”

My friend’s primary problem is not that he does not understand the other religions (though that probably is the case). My friend’s primary problem is that he doesn’t understand the Christian religion.

Not All Religions’ Rules are the Same

Not all religions’ rules are the same. But even more importantly, not all religions’ rules have the same purpose.

For all the religions in the world, except the Christian religion, following the rules is the way to be saved. “Follow the rules,” all other religions say, “and you will be saved.” Moreover, all religions other than Christianity say, “You can do it! You have the ability within you. Find your inner strength to overcome.” Maybe avoiding the distractions and temptations in the world is the key. “You can do it,” they say. Maybe overcoming evil or adversity in the world is the key. “You can do it,” they say.

The Christian religion is very different on this point. “You cannot do it,” says the Christian Bible. “You have no hope, except in the gracious mercy of God.”

All Have Sinned

Christianity certainly has its version of rules. “The rules,” of the Christian religion, are the “Ten Commandments.” You know, “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not commit adultery,” and so on — those Ten Commandments. Jesus summarized the Ten Commandments in the “Two Great Commandments”: (i) “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength;” and (ii) “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus not only summarized the Ten Commandments into the Two Great Commandments; he also expounded upon the Ten Commandments. In the New Testament book of Matthew, Jesus has told us what the Ten Commandments really mean. And it’s scary. “You’ve all heard the commandment, ‘Do not murder.’” (I’m paraphrasing.) “But listen to me. I’m telling you that if you’ve ever felt hatred or burning anger toward another person, you are guilty of violating this commandment.” WHOA! “You’ve heard the commandment, ‘Do not commit adultery.’” (Paraphrasing again.) “Now listen to me. If you’ve ever looked at another person with lustful desire, you have violated this commandment.” WOW!

The truth is that for those of us who have never literally killed anyone, if we have felt anger toward another person, we have violated the prohibition against murder in a spiritual sense. The sin of anger is the seed form of the sin of murder. Literally murdering somebody would be the full-grown tree, but we commit the same spiritual sin, in seed form, when we merely become angry. Entertaining a lustful desire or imagination or glance is the seed form of adultery. It’s the same sin, just in seed form. Jesus continues to elaborate, and the “Sermon on the Mount” continues to get scarier and scarier. The point is this: you haven’t kept the rules. Nobody has. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” the Apostle Paul tells us.

In Adam, all Die

The Bible tells us not only that we have not kept the commandments; it also tells us that we cannot keep them. We have no ability to keep them. We don’t — and can’t — measure up.

Our fundamental problem is one of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion. But it’s a doctrine that many people in our current society have either forgotten or dismissed. And many, like my new friend, probably never even learned it in the first place (even though many of them grew up in church). I’m referring to the doctrine of “Original Sin.” The Apostle Paul summarizes it for us like this, “In Adam, all die.”

In the Beginning

The first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, is a fundamentally important book. Many people today dismiss it to their great peril. The book of Genesis tells us who we are, where we came from, and what our purpose is.

We all — the entire human race — descended from one man, Adam, and one woman, his wife, Eve. This is why “racism” is such an evil and nonsensical philosophy. No humans belong to different races. We all belong to the same race — the human race. We all descended from the same ancient father and mother.

We are not “stardust,” as Bill Nye claims, but we all are from earth dust. God made man from the dust of the earth, just like he made the other animals. But then, God made man very different from the other animals.

God Made Man in His Own Image

God put into Adam an immortal soul — and a soul capable of knowing God, worshiping God, and loving God. As the ancient philosophers used to say, man is the only “rational animal.” Man is capable of appreciating beauty, making moral judgments, communicating with advanced language abilities, planning for the future, and creating new forms of art and technology. In these ways, mankind is very, very different from the beasts — the non-rational animals.

God made man in his own image. Adam and Eve were created in a fully righteous state. They knew and understood God’s moral law — the mandate to love God and love others — perfectly. It was “written” on their hearts. (This is why all we humans still have a conscience. Our conscience is a remnant, though faded and imperfect, of the original law of God written on the hearts of our first parents.) And the first man and first woman were fully able to keep the moral law of God. They were fully able to perfectly love God and love others, until they chose to rebel.

Sin Entered the World Through One Man, and Death Through Sin

The book of Genesis records Adam’s choice to disobey and rebel against his Creator. The consequences of his bad decision have been absolutely catastrophic — surely more than he imagined.

To understand the magnitude of the problem, it’s necessary to try to understand how important and how powerful Adam was. Adam was the crown jewel of all of God’s creation. Adam was more important than all the rest of God’s creation. Adam was more powerful than all the rest of God’s creation. Adam was given authority to govern all of God’s creation. When this amazing, powerful, important being — man — sinned, his action broke the entire universe. Everything, though still maintaining a remnant of its original beauty and greatness, has been broken — corrupted — by Adam’s sin. Sin entered the world through one man, Adam, and death entered through sin.

All of us — the entire human race — have been polluted by sin. We are the children of our sinful parents, Adam and Eve. We, in the natural course, have been conceived and born in their likeness. The spring became polluted, and now the entire river that flows from it, and the entire ocean to which it flows, also are polluted. This is why we haven’t obeyed the Ten Commandments. This is why we are not able to keep God’s moral law. This is why we can’t do it. We’ve been infected by sin. It is deadly to all of us. “Behold, I was born in iniquity, and in sin did my mother connive me!” exclaimed King David, when faced with his own moral failures.

All the evil in the world, all the sickness in the world, all the pain in the world — all the wars, all the crime, all the hate, all the racism — all the suffering — all the death — it’s all the result of Adam’s sin. How important that man was!

Through the Law, We are Made Aware of Our Sin

When we understand our plight caused by Adam — that when he fell, we fell — that we have inherited a corrupted nature from him — that we have been infected by sin, because of his sin — it becomes painfully obvious that the Ten Commandments offer us no hope of salvation. No one will be declared righteous by keeping the law — because none of us are able to fully keep the law. Rather, through the law, we become knowledgeable of our sin. The law shows us our sin.

This then is the primary purpose of the moral law of God (the Ten Commandments, summarized in the Two Great Commandments) — not to give us a scorecard so that by it, we can earn salvation — but rather to serve as a type of spiritual mirror, to show us our sin.

When I look in the mirror, it shows me my physical defects. The same thing happens when I look at pictures of myself — and even more painfully so. “I have a bump on my nose. Do other people notice that?” I wonder. “I have so many wrinkles around my eyes,” I lament. “My face is sagging. I don’t look as good as I used to.” “Am I really that fat?” “I have so much grey hair!” “Who is that old man in the mirror?!” When we pause to really look at ourselves in the mirror, and especially when we look at ourselves in pictures, and especially over time, if we are over the age of about 25, we are faced with a stark reality: “I’m dying.” All of our bodies are on the path to physical death.

God’s law — the Ten Commandments, or the Two Great Commandments — serves as our spiritual mirror. That’s why we don’t like it. That’s why we tend to recoil from it. It shows us our flaws. It shows us our sin. It shows us our guilt. It shows us our shortcomings. It shows us that, unless we are rescued, we are on the path to spiritual death.

And therein lies the purpose of the law — to show our need to be rescued. And in this, it leads us to the one — the only one — who is able to rescue us.

“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

These are Jesus’s words. He went on to say, “No one comes to the father, except through me.”

Why? Because he’s the God-Man — the “Deus Homo.”

This brings us to another fundamental Christian doctrine: the Virgin Birth of Christ.

Our condition is so dire — so hopeless — because of Adam’s sin, that we had no way to recover. We were without hope. None of us are righteous — not a single one.

Since we had absolutely no hope of saving ourselves — and this includes Gandhi, Mother Teresa, my grandmother, my new friend, and every other wonderful person you can name — we needed someone else — an outsider — to save us.

Because of his great love for us, God desired to show mercy to us. But God is also holy and just. Sin had to be punished. And to be just, God had to punish man for man’s sin. But all men are sinful, and no sinful man could pay for others’ sins, for he must be punished for his own sin. And no mere man, even if a righteous one were to be found, could satisfy God’s infinite justice. Only an infinite being could satisfy God’s infinite justice.

All of this brings us to the necessary conclusion that only God himself — the only infinite being — could save us by bearing the punishment for our sins and satisfying his own infinite justice. But in order to pay for our sins, God had to become a man. And that is what God did.

The Creator took the form of the creature. God took the form of a man. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” The God-Man humbled himself to take on the form of a servant. He paid the price for our sins by shedding his blood on the cross. He was able to fully satisfy God’s justice, because he is not only the singular righteous man; he also is the God-Man. By the infinite nature of his spirit, he was able to fully satisfy the wrath of God against our sins, so that we could be forgiven. And he did this because of his great love for us.

“Behold the Lamb of God!”

This was the cry of John the Baptist. This is the cry of every true follower of God. We point to Christ as the only hope for salvation — not out of arrogance (far from it) — but out of pure humility. We understand there is no hope for our sinful souls, except for the pure mercy of God, extended to us in the Lamb of God, by the great love of God. Praise be to the glorious Lamb of God!